From Solstheim, With Mostly Dislike
by Acolyte of the Bacon God
Summary: After splitting up with her Nordic companion at Raven Rock, Avonis Selvilo doesn't expect anything to happen beyond her getting right back on that ship and sailing home to Skyrim. This becomes much less of the case when she meets a Dunmer named Evesaes, whose uncle has disappeared to the very forces engulfing all of Solstheim. [Series, contains "Dragonborn" DLC spoilers and OCs.]
1. To Adventure!

Avonis never liked boats, or water, or anything having to do with the stuff. She should have expected it when that gruff, muscular Nord man asked if she wanted to accompany him on his adventures, as she seemed to be "the adventuring type".

So when one of the men on the ship was holding her hair back as she had quite the reunion with everything she'd eaten that day, she wasn't surprised. The silent brunet had his eyes on the slowly approaching shore, and Avonis was sorely tempted to ask where they were going, until she nearly fell off the boat with another dry heave. The Dunmer groaned, murmuring a thanks to the Breton and slumping to the deck.

It was now that she thought of home. Helgen, several months ago when she had left, was a nice little town. Nothing ever seemed to happen, but she loved the place. Her adoptive parents had moved there, it seemed, long before she was even born - more than sixteen years prior to where and when she was now. The teenager sighed, trying to ignore the taste of bile in her mouth that was residual from her seasickness. She missed home, wondered how her parents were, her friends...

"There it is," came a sudden voice from behind her. She nearly jumped, but the Nord didn't move a muscle. "Raven Rock."

* * *

She stood by, tapping her foot as the Nord idly chatted with the Dunmer who had met them at the dock. The ebony armor, no matter how thankful to the Nord man she was for giving it to her, seemed to weigh a thousand tons now, with the weakness she felt after losing her guts. After he appeared to be taking his leave, though, she followed diligently after him. He turned to her now, and spoke for what felt like the first time in forever. His voice was deep, and thick with the Nordic accent, which she had picked up from home as well as her travels with him. "This is where we part," he said simply. Avonis couldn't see into his eyes, no, he was too tall for that, but she gave him a nod and responded.

"It was nice traveling with you. What's your name?" But he was gone. She slouched, her already small frame seeming smaller, before trudging into town. Raven Rock was nothing like Helgen, or Skyrim at all, but she would get used to it eventually. She felt alien, unsure of how to make conversation, if she was supposed to make conversation at all. Some of the people here seemed... rather intimidating. Not in the same sense that the Nord was, but she felt odd nonetheless.

It led her to walk about, taking in the sights, meandering about the city with no real destination. Perhaps she'd find work, or just see what she had to see and then get right back to Skyrim. Accidentally kicking up some of the ash as she walked, she coughed and wheezed as some found its way into her lungs, taking a moment to steady herself against a wall and earning a few looks. Was she making herself look strange? This was a bad idea.

An even worse idea, she found, when she became accidentally responsible for sending another woman face-first into the ash. "Oh Gods. Are you okay?" She knelt down to help the mer up, taking note that her mouth and nose were covered with a cloth similar to what made up her hood, designed to keep the ash out. Avonis reminded herself to ask about that, and possibly get one herself. "I'm so, so sorry..."

The older mer gave her a look, and Avonis was slightly taken aback. She looked so much like her mother. The same eyes, though most Dunmer had red eyes, these had a slightly pinkish tinge; the sharp slant and the severe, piercing look. When she spoke, though, this woman sounded nothing like her. "Yer not from 'ere, are you?"

"Uhm... no. I'm from Skyrim. Falkreath Hold. ...Are you? From here, I mean." Avonis stood back up, helping the other mer to her feet.

The woman gave her an almost scrutinizing look, as if she were identifying a robbery suspect. "No, actually. 'M from Blacklight."

"Blacklight?" Avonis asked, and the woman gave a heavy sigh and seemed to restrain herself from introducing her face to her palm.

"Azura almighty," she murmured. "None of 'em know anymore... 's alright, though. Yer from Skyrim, y'wouldn't know." Was she patronizing her? Avonis couldn't tell. "You'll learn, trust me." She offered her hand, and Avonis tentatively shook it. "What's yer name?"

"Avonis Selvilo," she said, her voice scratchy from the ash.

The woman raised an eyebrow. "Selvilo? Y' don't happen to be related to... nevermind. M' name's Evesaes Andrano."

"Evesaes, huh?" Avonis smiled. "That's a nice name, I like it. What're you doing all the way out here?"

The mer named Evesaes wrung her hands, as if worried. "Family matters. Got a letter saying m'uncle went missin' in the dead 'a night. I said I'd look for him, and, well... it's been a week." Behind the half-mask, she bit down hard on her lip, and shuddered when Avonis reached up and placed a hand on her shoulder. She was short, this one.

Avonis took her hand back quickly, seeing how it caused her new friend discomfort, wanting to ask why but deciding it would be better if she didn't. "I could help you find him, if you want."

"Thanks, Avonis, really. But I've asked ev'ryone, 's no use..."

"Bullshit." The shorter mer looked up at her elder, her bright red eyes bright like a burning fire. "He's around somewhere. We'll find him."

* * *

If anything was going to stand out to Avonis, on this whole island, it was going to be that massive rock formation she and Evesaes had stumbled upon on their search for her uncle. Both had tried getting answers out of the people working on it, but it was like they were in another world. "They're in some kinda trance," Evesaes had said, after hearing what appeared to be a bandit murmuring something about seeing through somebody's eyes. "This place is givin' me the creeps, Avonis." But still they continued their search, all while trying to stay out of the workers' way.

The Nord was there too, it seemed, eyeing the people in a suspicious way. Avonis never doubted that she would see him again, but he appeared not to notice her, too caught up in what was going on then. When Evesaes asked if she knew him, she nodded, saying she knew him but not his name.

"So you've just seen him around?"

"No, actually. I've been traveling with him for about a year. We just split up when we got here."

They were about to leave, when one of the workers and Evesaes collided. " 'scuse me," she said, before looking up and realizing just who she had bumped into. "...No. No, no, oh _Gods_ no..." Avonis spun around, facing Evesaes and the man, and her face fell. It must have been her uncle.

"Evesaes. Evesaes, come back to us." She tried to shake Evesaes out of her horror, only partially succeeding - Evesaes slapped her in the face the minute she touched her. "We'll find a way to fix this," Avonis said, rubbing the red mark Evesaes had left. "I promise. But we have to go."

"But he-"

"Can't be helped. Not yet."

Evesaes gave a slow nod of resignation, watching as her uncle continued on his way. "Sorry 'bout slappin' you. Can y'just... warn me? Before you do that?"

"Can do, Ev. Do you mind if I hold your hand? In a friends way. ...Are we friends?"

The brunette smiled, and took Avonis's hand. "We're friends."


	2. Come What May

It was getting dark. Evesaes and Avonis, after learning that there wasn't much to do in Raven Rock, and after Avonis's interest in Solstheim was sparked by the hypnotized people, had decided to explore, to wander. Evesaes wasn't complaining. It took her mind off her uncle, and there wasn't another ship going back to Morrowind for quite a while.

They set up camp by an inlet a few miles from the city.

Avonis sat out by the water, watching as it pulled back and forth, occasionally leaving small shells at the shore. It was calming to her, oddly enough, and she pocketed a pink shell the water deposited that looked like it belonged to some sort of snail. The older Dunmer had brought an extra set of clothes for Avonis, and so she fumbled in getting her armor off to change into the clothing. Buckled were unbuckled, and pieces of ebony armor fell to the sand with a _thump_, _thump_,_ thump_. She quickly placed them in her sleeping bag. Avonis rarely slept; she had no use for it.

As she now found herself sitting on the ground in her underwear, she reached for the smock Evesaes had brought for her, pausing only when she heard things.

Sounds.

Things making sounds.

They were unintelligible, rasping sounds, but if Avonis listened closely, they resembled words. She dove behind a rock, allowing the upper half of her face to poke out above it and see just what was happening.

Little grey-blue creatures, goblinlike in every way. The clothes (could you call them clothes?) they wore were tattered, torn, but they didn't seem to care. They carried spears on their backs, one... was that one riding a boar?! It was all very intriguing, until she saw what several of them were dragging.

Avonis didn't care that she was half-naked. She waited for them to get out of her sight - she didn't want to draw attention to herself. And, alright, maybe she wanted to know where those goblin creatures were going. It took them a while to be gone, and that very moment, Avonis dropped all control she had over her mind and body.

Her skin peeled back to be replaced by jet black fur, her face lengthening and becoming blunt at the end, her ears changing shape until they were triangular, and closer to the top of her head. Her limbs changed to ridiculous proportions as the rest of her body caught up with her transformations, and as her claws clicked out from the tips of her still handlike paws, the creature that used to be Avonis leaped out from behind the rock and chased the goblins down.

* * *

The noises had woken Evesaes, and she sat up groggily, rubbing the sleep from her eyes with a loud yawn. "Mrrh... Avonis?" She wasn't in the tent, she wasn't outside... Evesaes didn't bother to change into normal clothes, instead rushing out into the night in her pajamas. "Avonis!"

The brunette leaped over the river, stumbling over the rocks on the other side in her mad dash to stop a massive, monstrous, determined cat plowing its way through a Riekling settlement, tossing aside the little goblin-esque creatures and tearing apart tents, swiftly dodging spears coming from this way and that, taking a boar in its jaws and-

Evesaes couldn't bear to look. Perhaps coming to Solstheim, for family matters or not, was not as good of an idea as she had initially thought. The noises that had woken her up? It had to have been Avonis. Which must have meant...

_Oh, **Gods.**_

"Avonis! Stop!" She called, panting and gasping as she finally caught up with the werebeast, who quickly disappeared into the cave that seemed to be the home of the Rieks. "Avonis!" She didn't dare go in after her, but simply sat down on the ground, nudging a Riekling corpse with her boot. There was no sense in going after a bloodthirsty cat.

It was hardly an hour before she came back, her usual Dunmer self: short, ginger, grinning her broad grin. In her ebony-plated arms was an unconscious mer, blood leaking from where a spear pierced his leg. Evesaes' jaw dropped. "Y-y' didn't... Is he alive? You didn't kill 'im, did you?"

Avonis gently lay him down among the dead Rieklings. "Of course I didn't. These goblin...things... got him, the little monsters... He was like this when I found him. He's still breathing, look." And of course, his chest still rose and fell, the evidence of slow but obvious breathing. "Should we get him to Raven Rock?" She asked, eyeing the spear's shaft. "I don't think he's gonna make it long like this. Looks like they hit something important."

"I don' think I told you, Avonis, but 'm a trained healer. Lemme take care of it; the way he looks right now, he ain't makin' it to the city, no matter how fast we go. Hold 'im steady, will you?" Evesaes treated the spear as she would an arrow. She tore off the bottom of her cloak, wrapping it tightly above the wound. She rolled him over onto his side, snapped off the spearhead, and ever-so-carefully pulled the shaft from his leg. And, just her luck, his eyes started to blink open.

"What in Oblivion-?!" He gasped, his red-eyed gaze darting from Evesaes, to Avonis, to the shaft half-lodged in his leg. "What's going on, where am I..." He grit his teeth as Evesaes yanked out the rest of the spear, and as she cast a quick healing spell to close the bleeding hole in his leg. "...Y-you," he said, pointing a shaky finger at Avonis. "You were that... that werebeast. I could swear it was you..."

"Hush, you. Yer prob'ly delusional," Evesaes said. "Do you remember anything else? What year's it? What's yer name? Where're you from?"

"Fourth Era, two hundred and two." He cringed, eyeing the tear in his pants. "My name is Nethyn Vari. Are you propositioning me?" Nethyn glanced towards Avonis, back to Evesaes, and then a bit downwards. "There's a stain in your robes. Did you sit in something?"

Avonis giggled, and Evesaes cast her a stern look. "Don' snark me, Vari. I can reopen yer wound jus' like that."

"Of course," he said. "I'm sorry." There was some sincerity in his voice, but the corner of his mouth was twitching. Evesaes turned around, and Avonis was trying to hold back a laugh. She sighed. At least they were getting along.

"So," Avonis finally swallowed her impending giggle fit. "What happened? What did those goblins want with you?"

Nethyn pulled himself into a sitting position and sighed. "It's a long story.

"And they're called Rieklings."


End file.
